


Of Fire and Ash

by closedcaptioning



Category: Naruto
Genre: Gaara (Naruto)-centric, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-06
Updated: 2019-03-06
Packaged: 2019-11-13 01:26:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 778
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18022187
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/closedcaptioning/pseuds/closedcaptioning
Summary: Gaara knows some things are painful in their perfection. You cannot own the sun -- but you can bask in its warmth.Gaara also knows that when you love something, it can burn you worse than you've ever imagined.





	Of Fire and Ash

Gaara hates the way Lee’s smile burns, almost too brightly, 

(like the sun, like the red hot fire that awaits Gaara);

he hates the way Lee’s eyes will flit to Gaara knowingly, the way he’s effortlessly exuberant and effervescent, the way the world explodes into kaleidoscopic, sparkling bursts of color when Gaara looks at Lee, feels the energy radiating from him and struggles not to be blown away.

/ / 

Lee fights, and Gaara can barely keep track of his movements, as he _flies_ like a falcon, sharp and graceful, beautiful and agile. Lee is everything Gaara wants to be and everything he hates; he’s an amalgamation of warmth, of skill, of determination, of an ever-burning _fire_ \- Gaara feels like Icarus, like his wax wings are already dripping just from his proximity. 

Gaara can’t take it. He stops thinking (because when have his thoughts ever gotten him anywhere), lets go and starts _feeling_ \- he can feel every callus, every scar in Lee’s skin through every grain of sand as it wraps around Lee. Gaara closes his eyes, because he doesn’t need them to see (why use something as unreliable as eyesight when you have something better). Lee’s every breath vibrates like an accordion, shuddering and emptying, and Gaara’s sand rolls in waves on Lee’s skin. Lee swallows, and Gaara can feel the movement of his tendons, his diaphragm; Gaara’s never felt something so primal, so instinctive, so _raw_ -

/ /

They’ll tell him that Lee was put in the hospital, that he had somehow bounced back from it and still as ebullient as ever. They’ll tell him with expressions of barely concealed reproach and even more visible _hope_ , hope that Gaara will display something like guilt (maybe his gut does fall and the thought of anything dimming that light, even if it is him) - 

But all he can remember is the feeling he had when Lee was in the grip of his sand, and he can’t find it in himself to feel too remorseful. 

/ /

Gaara calls Lee to spar again, chasing after that _thrill_ he had felt, snatching at it like it was a wisp of colored smoke, rising up into the air where Gaara could never go. Surprisingly (or maybe not surprisingly, Lee was naive and kind and inherently _good_ , after all), Lee agrees readily, with a smile and a “I really enjoyed our fight!” even though he had been landed in the hospital. Lee somehow still _glows_ , no matter what happens, and Gaara is the moth drawn to this flame - he can’t look away.

They meet up a couple times, and once, when Lee’s out of breath and scuffed and dirty and there are more grains of Gaara’s sand coating the earth than not, Gaara gives in and lets himself just _feel_ for the second time in his life, and then they’re kissing and it’s rough and half desperate and searching. It’s everything Gaara ever wanted, and everything he fears.

/ /

Lee is too beautiful.

Gaara runs his fingers down Lee’s jawline reverently, admiring the way Lee’s pulse points jumps as his breath hitches. It’s intoxicating. Gaara leans down to press a chaste kiss to Lee’s lips, and murmurs into their intermingling breaths, “I can’t get enough of you.”

And Lee smiles at him, but Gaara knows that there’s an underlying truth to his own words, and he feels something coiling in his gut, icy and heavy and sharp like a stalactite hanging, growing from the ceiling, trembling and about to fall. Remorse, he won’t call it.

/ /

Sometimes, Gaara will let Lee put his arms around him and just hold him. Lee cradles him like he’s something precious, like he’s something worth protecting, and Gaara greedily sucks it up. Gaara’s a black hole, submerging all light and spreading its yawning emptiness everywhere, and he can’t quite bring himself to let this go.

Gaara takes a deep breath, inhales Lee’s clean scent. He smells of pine and nature and sun and boy, and Gaara’s words come back to him: _I can’t get enough of you._ Gaara takes a breath, and lets a truth settle deep into his bones: that Lee’s fire is not one that burns and destroys, but one that cleanses, one that protects. 

Wrapped in Lee’s warmth, Gaara thinks that he wouldn’t mind being burned, if it was by Lee. 

/ /

Every step Gaara takes with Lee, he can feel himself sinking, but like quicksand, he can’t get out of it without sinking further. 

Gaara falls into Lee’s dark eyes, into Lee’s soft touch, high on Lee’s energy. But even though Gaara falls with every step, he and Lee fall together, and Gaara thinks that falling has never felt so liberating.


End file.
